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Albert Camus

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Monday, October 29, 2018

Darkly romantic. - Fallen Angel Series by J.L. Myers

"This is a beautifully written story. The world building is fantastic and the character are so well developed and real you will either love or hate them. True to form, J.L. Myers has created a truly exceptional story. I'm hoping we will not have long to wait for the next story in this series. I highly recommend this story -" Donna, Goodreads

Description:

Ashes of Eden (#1)

The original sinner. The angel he covets. And one unbreakable law…

The second Lucifer saw Gabriel in the flesh, his whole existence changed. Her voice, her touch, the way she looks at him with complete acceptance; Gabriel is his addiction and Lucifer is done for.

But there’s a catch. Don’t fall in love.

Lucifer isn’t free to want more than the immortal life he leads. His body craves her and he hungers for a taste of her blushed lips, but love between angels is a punishable sin…

A sin Lucifer is ready to risk his legacy for…

EXCERPT

Gabriel writhed against the tree, flames entering her robe from the ground up. She cried out, the burn attacking her toes and climbing her legs, melting and burrowing through her skin. This was the end—her end—here in this grassy field. Here under a darkening sky before the eager eyes of all the human men who had captured her. Here—alone.

With agony consuming her on the outside, Gabriel retreated into her mind, away from the smell of her cooking flesh and the sound of her bloodcurdling screams. No longer able to feel the wet tears that forged tracks down her face, she conjured the memory of her last encounter with Lucifer.

He had come to watch her. To observe her down on Earth.

But of course she had known the moment he landed nearby. As always, she had felt him.

At first her heart had taken off in her chest, soaring like a bird’s rapid wings on the breeze. But her heart did not make the rules.

“I want you to leave, Lucifer. Leave me be.”

And he had, despite the tears she could not hold at bay. Despite how clearly his heart was breaking as he staggered away and took flight up into the twilight sky. Clinging to the image of his shell-shocked face, she remembered the sheen to his wide silver-blue eyes, the bunching of his tan brow, the way his lips trembled over clenched teeth as if he were fighting the temptation to refuse her demand. Her hand cupping his jaw had been their last touch, a touch that could never compare to the slide of his rough hands over her bared body or the hungry pressure of his mouth against hers. But that would never happen again.

“As you wish.” Lucifer had surrendered to her refusal. He had granted her wish. And now…

She would die alone.

Gabriel’s screams shattered her memories as the blaze engulfing her robe-clothed body licked even higher. Legs bared and bloody, flames now lashed her stomach and arms. Renewed panic made it feel like her insides were smoldering too. This couldn’t be her end. It couldn’t be their end.

Yanking her arms up to evade the burn, the lowest rope snapped around her hips, ripping skin away in its wake. Gabriel hissed at the sting, swallowing her screams. Raw hands snatching and tugging at the higher ropes, they refused to budge, her strength failing her.

Darkness fell, teasing her senses with the promise of cold that could never combat the inferno of flames that climbed ever higher and renewed her tortured cries. Wings trapped to the tree behind her catching alight rapidly, even escape from her bindings would not spare her. Those men stood by, spears in hand and murder painted in their eager gazes.

Strands of her windblown hair sizzled up to her scalp with flaming embers, and Gabriel’s eyes pinned shut. The burn attacking her arms had a hold of her ribs, eating away inside her, breaking her. Her heart felt hot, too hot. Soon her screams would turn to fire—with her final shriek.

Unable to speak, parting words formed in her mind. A telepathic message, a goodbye…that would never reach its source. Never blame yourself, Lucifer. This was not your doing. It was mine. I was wrong. I need you. I have always needed you.

A sudden commotion sounded, a booming ruckus as the ground shook. But the cause mattered not. Nothing mattered anymore. Her end was imminent.

And then everything changed.

Gabriel’s bindings suddenly released and she fell like the dead. A blanketing weight covered her, blocking the cooling breeze and dousing the consuming fires that coated her sticky body and wings. Skin stuck and peeled away, the sound joining her rattling sobs. And then she sucked in a choked breath—and smelled him.

Staring down at her was the one face she had never expected to see again. Tan, rugged, and filled with a fear of losing her that resonated in his eyes with silver tears. “Lucifer. You came—” she rasped, realizing this was real. Realizing Lucifer had returned to this field on Earth and was surrounded by murderous men. Tongue feeling like it was on fire, she gasped out, “No. Oh, no. Please. Leave before they get—”

There were screams, men barking orders out of sight that refused to break through the sound of rushing blood in Gabriel’s ears. The look of relief across Lucifer’s face morphed with animalistic fury. “No being will ever hurt you again. I vow it.”

And then he was gone.

Chilled air swept in at his absence, fighting the burn that clawed at her bloody body and causing a fresh wave of agony to dance across her melted skin. Grunts and shouts rose up, and then wet thumps—bodies hitting mud. Dread hooked into her insides as if worms had suddenly risen up to devour her charred remains. Murder of men was a heinous sin. A sin so much worse than her forbidden interactions with Lucifer. She needed to stop him. She needed to—

With a gasp of pain, Gabriel rolled to her side, seeing movement through the long brown grass as men fell injured but still alive. Her eyes scoured through the mass of men screaming commands to kill. Finally locating Lucifer, she saw a dagger in his hands as he caught the throat of the man who had led this village of men and ordered her death. The man’s face turned red then purple as he was lifted from the ground. Spit sprayed from his lips, but no sound escaped. The grip on his jugular was too tight. A death grip.

“You attacked the wrong angel, you disgusting excuse for a human.” Lucifer’s smile was a promise as he pointed the dagger at the man’s wide eyes.

Gabriel struggled to her hands and knees, the grass ripping more of her raw skin away. About to fall in a heap, she grunted through the agony.

Dagger freezing mid-air, Lucifer’s head cranked sideways. His eyes widened and flung the man aside to run at her. “Gabriel, look—”

Something punched into Gabriel’s back, stealing a gasp from her as it tunneled through her heart and exploded out through her chest. Her head fell forward, and a bloody spearhead gleamed up at her.

The end of Gabriel and Lucifer’s story was upon them…but this is far from where this devastating love story began.

Dawn of Reckoning (#2)

Darkly romantic. A dangerous new paranormal thriller for fans of all things supernatural.

Before Earth there was Heaven, a place of immortality and subservience, a place where angels existed to watch the world transform…until one angel changed everything.

Gabriel may have been the first of the archangels to feel love and compassion, but teaching Lucifer to feel started the beginning of the end. Angels aren’t free to love, to lust, to want. They are God’s servants, his eyes and ears, his pure beings.

Or at least they were.

After falling for Gabriel with all her beauty and eternal hope, Lucifer refuses to return to his subservient ways. He wants more than the hand he was dealt with all its immortality and reverence. He wants to be free.

But freedom comes at a price…

Struck from Heaven and the one he loves, Lucifer is banished to Earth to live as a mortal…but even without his wings, he’ll never be fully human. And he’ll never let go of his rage against the one who cast him out. When Lucifer discovers the power of his angelic blood, God’s precious humans in all their sins and freedom become the pawns in Lucifer’s unwavering revenge.

A new race is set to emerge. A race to reveal the ugliness of humanity.

Through it all, Gabriel refuses to lose faith in Lucifer and the man she knows he truly is. Now her fellow archangels plan to use her against him…but will she be Lucifer’s downfall or his savior?

A tale of unquenchable rage, deception, and eternal love.

A paranormal angel, vampire novella.

EXCERPT

Lucifer’s eyes didn’t leave Gabriel’s face for a second. In all the years that had passed, she had not changed. Her milky skin glowed with perfection, her hair was the same silver-flaxen color it had been, and her eyes…the hope she propelled from their silver-blue depths still made his heart trip over itself and his palms sweat. And now she was here, right in front of him. Close enough to touch. He fought to find the words, fists clenching to keep them from reaching out. “It has been almost three decades.”

When he felt the heavenly presence moments ago, he had expected God. Rage and satisfaction had mingled inside him as he stalked from the enemy’s camp, leaving his men to their bloody business. The sword sheathed at his side had been a comfort, a weapon that, though useless against his maker, made him feel powerful. Now under the canopy of tall, draping trees, he could do naught but stare, stunned into silence as too many thoughts and emotions created havoc inside his body and mind.

“I have missed you, Morningstar.”

Lucifer’s knees almost gave out at her tender name for him, a name that had meant so much to him so long ago.

“You tempt your fate too much.” She moved forward with grace, and he froze as she reached up to touch his face. He had longed for her touch for so long, and he could not help but lean his cheek into her warm palm. “I fear what this petulance will cost you. His forgiveness may not withstand—”

A snarl escaped Lucifer’s lips as they snapped shut. He jerked back. His earlier rage resurfaced, pumping through his veins like molten lava. He had tried so damn hard to earn redemption, and he had failed. “God’s eternal forgiveness is saved for his precious humans. They alone are his pride. We are merely his servants. Loyal and pure is not what he values. Now I am like them.” He threw his arms out and glared up at the sparkling night sky. “Existing solely for my own gain and other’s demise.”

Gabriel’s wings unfurled fast, perfect and pure in their radiant glow. The trees at her back gained light, adding an eerie tinge to the darkened forest. “Lucifer, no. You allow your anger to blind you. He does not want—”

Lucifer shoved her back, the dejection that pooled silver in her eyes breaking something in him. Gabriel had abandoned him as surely as she had lost her hope for him long ago. Yet her belief in their maker and his many mistakes still held true. A tree blocked her retreat, giving her nowhere but up to escape to. “I am human. One of his precious creations. Still I am not good enough.” For Him or for you. “He cast me out. He took my wings. He took everyth—”

Gabriel punched Lucifer in the face, and he stumbled from the shock of her sudden outburst. Her wings flung open and that soft edge to her features hardened. Hand snapping out, she caught him by the neck and squeezed. “I will not let you continue this. This plague you have cursed the earth with…I cannot bear to see it. Not for them, but even more so, not for you. I know you, Lucifer. You burned so brightly once. It can be that way again.”

Her grip loosened, and with a blink her eyes dried up. The smile that graced her blushed lips stole Lucifer’s thoughts, making him want to do so much more than stare at her.

“If you would only let go of this pain and accept your place among us once more. Accept God’s love again, Lucifer. Beg his forgiveness. Do it for you, for what we both know you can be.”

And there it was again, her eternal faith in the God who had refused him, who had spat on his good deeds and ripped his heart out. Exhaustion set upon Lucifer and he sighed as Gabriel’s hand fell from his neck. He swallowed, causing pain to undulate down his throat. “What you demand is impossible. Without you…I am nothing. God knows my heart. And that I cannot change. You may not feel what we once shared, but I can never forget. I can never let go. And that alone is why he keeps me a prisoner below, why my will to redeem myself died…”

His words stalled as his face fell, seeing something he had not noticed in all his shock and anger since her unexpected arrival. Tight around her ankle was a glowing manacle with two links still attached.

Gabriel’s hand neared his face. “Lucifer, what is—”

Lucifer struck out, catching her wrist. His heart hammered beneath his ribs, belting like it wanted to explode. His head snapped up. “You are not permitted to be here.”

He had wrongly, stupidly, assumed that she had been sent to stop his path of destruction that kept humans screaming as they ran from the camp behind him before being caught and dragged back in. And now she was here, far from the Realm of Light in a place she was not permitted to visit. The restraint around her ankle needed no affirmation. If she had been released, all that remained would be the indents and reddened skin below.

Gabriel had pulled her wrist free and was speaking, but all he could hear was the rushing in his ears. She had broken her chains. She had escaped—to see him. Her forbidden lover.

“Michael warned—”

“Michael is a snake,” Lucifer grated out, cutting off whatever she had been saying. None of it mattered. But her being here did. “In buying his lies, you endanger yourself. You should not have come. Leave, before it is too late.”

He spun, ready to march back to the camp and his waiting men, but Gabriel caught his arm and yanked him back around. “No. I will not go. I will not fail you again.”

Confusion bled any remaining anger right out of him. Had he been wrong all along? Had Gabriel merely been prevented from seeking him out? Or had she stayed away for a cause more significant than he could know? Either way, he saw the truth in her eyes. In almost two millennia, her hope for him had not died. She still cared for him. Perhaps she even still loved him.

“It is not you who failed me.” Lucifer reached up and tucked her windblown hair behind her ear. Keeping his hand aloft, he knew what he had to do, and he hated it. But she did not deserve to suffer as he had. She did not deserve to be punished, banished…or to lose her wings. Earth did not deserve a pure soul like hers. Though in his opinion, neither did God. Taking a slow step forward, he fought to remain close and not back down from what he knew he had to do. Bringing his lips to her forehead, he reached up to cup the back of her neck.

Gabriel sighed at his touch. “Lucifer, please…”

“I am sorry,” he whispered, looking skyward to force the burn in his eyes to recede. His grip on her neck tightened, a clue to his intent. “I will not let you be condemned too.”

Jessica L Myers' vivid imagination and quiet demeanor as a child led her to the imaginary worlds of books. Even at a young age, her love for the supernatural was prevalent, with her first loved books being R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series. Following that she took an interest in other non-fantasy fiction, including Virginia C. Andrews series Flowers in the Attic.

In her teen years, Jessica spent many school hours writing poetry and dark short stories and took up sketching some of the terrifying things that came from the graphic night terrors she’d grown up with.

As an adult and after meeting the love of her life, Jessica got married and started a small construction business with her husband. With the birth of her son, Jessica suffered PPD and found escape in her books and their fantasy landscapes. It was at this time that her need to write flourished. In 2009 the decision was made and the first words to her New Adult Paranormal Romance novel What Lies Inside were written.

When Jessica isn’t immersed in writing about extraordinary characters with dangerous abilities and deadly obstacles to overcome, she likes to spend time with her two kids and husband, curl up with a good book, or watch anything and everything supernatural.